Hey, Stupid: eBooks Don’t Have Returns

“We have been hit with a procession of distribution-related problems which have put us into a financial situation that is forcing us to close our doors,” they explain. “For the better part of the year, we have been paying very high return fees to our distributor — many generated by books being sent back by the currently less-than-stable Borders — fees which have slowly been bleeding us dry… Try as we might, we have been unable to figure a way out of this situation as we have never been long on capital and with the economy being in such a disastrous state, there is no hope of finding any money from an outside source.”

I wonder what this venture was capitalized at?

I wonder how much frikkin Internet advertising they could have paid for instead of wasting it on print, paper, and shipping?

I wonder how many eBooks they would have been able to sell if they’d put some hardcore effort behind such a plan?